


Children of God

by ginkyou



Category: Historical Criminals RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels, Angel Wings, Angels, Body Horror, M/M, Prophetic Visions, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, i actually read quite a bit of the bible for this, update 06/11/2018: check the notes for a link to a podfic version!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 19:21:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8297335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginkyou/pseuds/ginkyou
Summary: Richard Loeb is an angel, and angels are terrifying beings.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like I should probably emphasize that I mean no disrespect to those who believe in any of the things mentioned or alluded to in this fic.  
> Unbeta'd as always.  
> Check out the podfic version read by Luna Farrowe on youtube: [[click]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBm_C4K_2bE) <3

> _A word was secretly brought to me,_  
>  _my ears caught a whisper of it._  
>  _Amid disquieting dreams in the night,_  
>  _when deep sleep falls on people,_  
>  _fear and trembling seized me_  
>  _and made all my bones shake._  
>  _A spirit glided past my face,_  
>  _and the hair on my body stood on end._  
>  _It stopped,_  
>  _but I could not tell what it was._

–– Job 4:12-16 (New International Version)

 

* * *

 

Nathan Leopold did not believe in angels. He didn't even believe in a god. He reasoned that if one existed, he would eventually know, but until that time came, an overwhelming amount of evidence seemed to point to the contrary.

All of his carefully collected evidence meant absolutely nothing when confronted with Richard.

Nathan knew Richard’s name the second he saw him. It had been written in the sky amidst millions of names he had no idea how to pronounce for what felt like years. The crowd parted around Richard like the sea before Moses. He walked past them and they all averted their eyes and Nathan shook to his very core at the way Richard seemed to _shine_. Nathan could feel in his bones that there was so much more to Richard than the brown suit and the black hair, that the decisiveness to his step and the flame in his eyes told of years unheard of and times unseen. Nathan slunk out of Richard's way just like everybody else but he couldn’t keep his eyes off him, and as Richard glid past him he felt the hairs on his arms bristle and char. Richard seemed to have so much purpose in him, and it made Nathan shake.

He stared at Richard, and Richard turned his head and locked eyes with Nathan and Nathan’s vision filled with nothing but sparks and screams and terror terror terror and then Nathan blinked and Richard looked away and the moment was gone.

Nathan spent the following days trying his best to pretend the voices that kept him up at night were nothing but stress, and that the soot that covered his windowsill when he opened his curtains every morning was merely a result of their heating malfunctioning, and that the children chanting the same line about the wrath of God over and over again as he passed them on his way to college were nothing, nothing, nothing. Everything was perfectly fine, he told himself even as he sat in class, his vision blurring and his pen wandering over his notes screaming out Richard’s name in ink.

Thankfully it didn’t take long for Richard to come back from wherever he had gone. Nathan’s head hurt so much that morning he could barely see the newspapers screeching at him about the flocks of birds found dead in Kenwood.

Richard looked so normal in his hat and coat and the way his shoes were scuffed with dirt but Nathan’s head filled with the buzzing of a thousand angry bees at the sight of him and the sky was overflowing with teeth and light and so much more than Nathan’s mortal brain could comprehend and all he wanted to do was kneel, kneel, kneel. Richard walked straight towards Nathan. He was smiling, and Nathan couldn’t tell if it was the stone under his hands or his hands themselves that were melting.

“You don’t believe,” Richard said with a thousand voices. Nathan couldn’t even shake his head, but he didn’t have to because Richard was looking into his eyes and could see every single thought Nathan had ever had. Richard’s gaze was filled with the gentlest of graces but behind it blazed a fire of nothing but anger. There was a terrible wrath in him, far greater than any Nathan had ever known, and Nathan was terrified of it even though he knew it wasn't meant for him. A man walked past them and as his sleeve brushed against Richard Nathan could see the man’s lungs shrivel up and die. Richard smiled. “I don’t blame you.”

Nathan felt the building crumble around him, could hear the streets shake and break and fire fall from the sky even though all he saw was a normal sunny day and Richard’s beautiful smile. He wanted to sob, the gasping, hurting kind that made his jaw feel like it was being stabbed with a thousand needles. Before he really understood what he was doing he found himself reaching out, fingers numb, and he wanted nothing more than to bear the pain that burrowed deeper into his hand the closer he got to Richard’s chest. Static filled his eyes and screeching his ears and he held his breath, teeth gritted. His skin blistered but he didn’t want to stop, he couldn’t stop, he had to touch Richard because he was all he could see through the light that threatened to blind him.

Richard stopped Nathan’s hand by wrapping his fingers around Nathan’s arm. Nathan’s skin bubbled and boiled under his sleeves and Nathan desperately wanted him not to stop touching him until his blistering touch made his flesh fall from his bones. As the heat of a billion years of fire surrounded them, Richard pulled Nathan’s sleeve up enough to expose his wrist. Richard looked at Nathan and his eyes were stars.

Richard’s hand touched Nathan’s skin, and Nathan screamed.

 

When Nathan came to again, he was back in his room. For a hazy moment his vision was blurred enough that he could pretend the shape sitting next to him on the bed was merely human. His hand ached and burned but, much to his surprise, it was still there, and as he tentatively moved his fingers, blackened by the power running through Richard’s veins, they still obeyed him.

Looking up at Richard was like staring directly at the sun. Holy, holy, holy, the voices filling Nathan’s head sang and the word pushed and tore at his throat wanting to get out, but Richard shook his head. “I’m not holy,” he said softly. There was no anger in his words, it had burnt out millennia ago and all that had been left behind was exhaustion. “But I have something to tell you. I knew millenia before you were born that you would listen.”

Without another word, Richard touched Nathan’s shirt, fingers lingering on the fabric just above his heart, and fire shot through Nathan’s vision. He fell, he fell, and he burned, and when Richard finally let him close his eyes he knew exactly what Richard was. Nathan gasped for air. The image had been in his head for no longer than a second but the afterimage lingered no matter how much he tried to blink it away, and it _hurt_. Richard was still touching him, but there was no message in his fingertips. Richard’s hands had reached the first button of Nathan's shirt before Nathan managed to find himself in the billions of words filling his head. “Don’t,” he said. He didn’t dare to say that it was because he was nothing compared to Richard, that he was afraid his mortal body might stain Richard’s radiant skin, that in the grand scale of things he was already rotting away under Richard’s fingers as they spoke, but he knew better than to hope that Richard hadn’t already reached into his head and dissected those thoughts.

“I’ve already fallen,” Richard said, and Nathan could feel his blood sizzle where Richard was resting his fingertips on his shirt. “You can’t defile me any more than I have already defiled myself.”

Nathan couldn’t find the words to protest because Richard’s hand threatened to burn every fiber of his being so he did the only thing he could still remember how to do, which was slowly and rather ungracefully sit up. Richard removed his fingers from his chest to allow him to do so, and Nathan felt both thankful and incredibly sad at being able to breathe again.

He had half expected to see wings on Richard’s back. There were none, of course, but he could tell from the way Richard smiled at him that Richard could tell he was mildly disappointed. “I can have wings if you want me to,” Richard whispered. Nathan’s mouth, brimming with a thousand dead languages, was too dry to answer, so all he did was nod.

The wings that unfurled from Richard’s body in wordless response were the most beautiful sight Nathan had ever witnessed. They were radiant with light and power, their heavy pinions big enough to cause storms. Nathan instinctively tried to identify their species but they grew too quickly, feathers molding and bending and colors changing before his eyes. When they finally settled on a form, they were big and brown and golden and the pure strength in them terrified and fascinated Nathan. He could tell that they were the wings of a bird of prey, and the thought made him shudder.

He gently caressed them. Richard shudder under Nathan's touch and for a brief, cold moment Nathan wished Richard hadn’t because it made him almost seem human. Richard’s wings glistened under Nathan’s hands and even when his fingers started bleeding because Richard's feathers were sharper than any mortal knife could be, he couldn’t stop himself from touching them. They were so much more beautiful than anything he had ever seen. They suited Richard so well, their sharp edges accentuating the edges of Richard's body. They truly belonged to Richard, and Nathan wanted to clothe them in garlands and wreaths of gold and have his quiet reverence turn his bedroom into something holier than a church.

Nathan let Richard’s wings slide out of his hands and Richard wrapped them around him, all warm and soft and so much more than Nathan would ever be. Richard let Nathan put his arms around him and rest his face in the nape of Richard’s neck, and he sang to him. Richard’s voice filled Nathan’s ears and shattered his eardrums and Nathan's skin burnt and boiled under his clothes and finally began to melt, a billion eyes opening on his flesh, and his heart twisted and writhed and filled with singeing light and it didn’t matter, none of it mattered, because they finally were pure, pure, pure.


End file.
